


Deep Dark

by Hogwartsowls



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Claustrophobia, Established Relationship, Fred is alive because I like him better that way, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, pranks gone wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 21:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4195560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hogwartsowls/pseuds/Hogwartsowls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry gets caught in one of Fred and George's milder pranks. However, it isn't so innocent when horrible memories resurface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I would just like to start by saying that I do not have claustrophobia and that what Harry goes through during this story is how I feel I would personally react to a similar situation. I realize that this phobia affects each person differently and I'm not pretending to know what goes on in their heads. That being said, I hope that I've portrayed this as accurately as I can, not with standing.  
> Also, the spell Harry and Ron use at the end is a creation of my own mind.

It was dark. I couldn’t see my hands when I waved them in front of my eyes. The footsteps had retreated a long time ago but I couldn’t give an exact time. Everything was quiet. I could feel the rough wood floor under my knees and the smell of soap and fresh linens filled the stale air. The space was small, a shelf over my head and two more above that. The door was locked from the outside and no spell I used made any difference, they all fizzled out before the incantation was complete. Lumos wouldn’t even work and I couldn’t apperate. The closet was a complete no-fly magic zone.

I let out a groan of frustration and threw my wand against the wall and it rolled back to me without even emitting a spark. It was infuriating. I sat down and rested my back against the other wall, my knees curled up to my chest and my arms holding them protectively. I could feel my heart rate speeding up and I willed myself to stay calm. Someone would come and find me soon. I tried to focus on that happy thought but my anxiety got the better of me. It felt like the walls of the tiny space were closing in around me, trying to squish me between them. I could hear the cruel laughs of my uncle and my cousin’s pounding feet on the stairs above my head. Suddenly I was in Privet Drive again, locked against my will in the cupboard under the stairs for days on end without food or water and nothing but the dust motes to keep me distracted from the tight walls.

I instinctively reached up to the shelf above me and grabbed onto one of Mrs. Weasley’s towels and bit onto it to keep me from screaming. Sweat beaded on my forehead, under my arms, behind my neck and under my knees. I squirmed. The dark was too dark and the light not light enough. Someone had put something in front of the door so the light that should have crept in from under it and around the edges was extinguished. There was no keyhole in the doorknob either. My hands were shaking and it was getting hard to breath. Tears were already streaming down my face. I had no shame for them either. No one knew how terrifying it was to be locked in here for such a long time. I thought I had gotten over it when I moved into the second bedroom in Privet Drive, but clearly I hadn’t.

I screamed and pounded my fists against the door. Maybe if I could break the door down I could escape. The bangs rattled in my ears and my hands hurt from where they met the wood. I screamed and clawed viciously against the door. The action did more damage to my fingers than to the door though. I could feel my fingernails screaming in protest and the warm blood seeping between my fingers from the nail beds I was destroying. I didn’t care though; the pain gave me something to focus on.

I gave up eventually, seeing that my attempts of escape were futile. I shrunk back into the corner and hugged my knees to my chest again. My head was throbbing from the increasing air pressure and I thought I could hear voices coming from downstairs. I shook my head and whimpered to myself. I had to be hallucinating. There was no one else in the house except me. However, the voices were still there, wafting up the stairs and into my captivity, speaking the truths I already knew.

“… Linen cupboard on the third floor…”

“… Anti-Magic charm…”

“… Claustrophobic…”

“… Locked in the cupboard under the stairs for 12 years…”

I screamed and the voices stopped. My shoulders were shaking with sobs and my chest contracted painfully. I gulped greedily at the air but I couldn’t get enough. It felt as though I was drowning. I was going to die in here. I could defeat Voldemort and thousands of Death Eaters but I was going to die locked in the linen cupboard on the third floor of the Burrow. The idea was almost laughable but the chuckle was stuck in my throat. I chocked on it and coughed. Another scream pushed its way through my chest and threatened to escape. I stuffed the towel into my mouth again to stifle it and sobbed painfully. If I could see anything other than darkness, I would bet all the money in my vault in Gringotts that my face was as red as Ron’s hair. Ron. His face popped up into my mind. Was he wondering where I was? There was probably a silencing charm over the room so if he came home he wouldn’t hear me scream.

I threaded my bloodied fingers through the soft fabric of the towel and cried pitifully into my knees. There was a faint pounding that was growing stronger in the back of my head and I was pulled back to Privet Drive again. The pounding became crashes then booms and I pressed my hands over my ears as I tried hopelessly to block out the noise. It didn’t stop and soon the noises were reverberating outside of my head. The kept getting louder and louder and I felt like my head was going to explode. The first set of booms ended but another one was heard getting louder and louder. When they stopped a third set started. These were even louder than the previous two with an irregular pattern. I wanted to scream but that would only add to the noise. As it was I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face, or the shaking of my shoulders and hands.

The door suddenly flew open and four figures stood in contrast to the bright sunlight. I squinted at them and my head let out a stream of profanities at the sudden brightness. The front-most figure stuck a wand into their back pocket and knelt down in the doorway. The light made a halo around their head and as my eyes adjusted I made out shaggy red hair, a long nose covered in orangey-colored freckles and panicked blue eyes that softened upon seeing me.

My eyes moved from the boy’s face to see a girl standing behind him. She smiled sadly at me and looked over at the two figures to her left. They were clearly twins, about 20 years old, guilty expressions disfiguring their features. I looked away and caught the boy’s gaze and recognized it as Ron’s.

“Hey Harry,” he whispered softly.

I whimpered and clutched at my towel harder. Ron’s face fell and I heard the girl suck in a break sharply. Hermione I realized and the boys behind her were Fred and George. I felt slightly reassured that I knew the people in the room. Ron shot an angry look over his shoulder towards his brothers before stretching a long-fingered hand towards me. I looked at it wearily before reaching out and putting my hand carefully into his. The familiar feel of his calloused palm and finger pads reassured me slightly. I moved my other hand out to the side and grabbed hold of my wand before letting Ron bring me out of the cupboard and into the bright hallway beyond.

As soon as I was all the way out of the cupboard I sent a well-placed kick to the door, slamming it shut and closing out the picture of the horrible space. Ron, Hermione, Fred and George watched me silently. I looked at each of them quickly but when I got to Ron’s face, a sob escaped from somewhere deep inside me. I flung my wand and my towel to the floor and collapsed into his arms. They came up around me, hugging me to his chest. One wound around my back, the other coming up to my shoulders; his hand cupping the back of my head. My arm circled his back and I pressed my face into the crook of his neck. Sobs wracked my body still and his hand rubbed slow circles into my spine in an effort to calm me down.

“Shh Harry, everything is okay now love. You don’t have to be scared anymore,” Ron whispered. “Let’s go back to our room now, yeah?”

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked bleary-eyed into his face. He dropped a kiss to my scarred forehead and a tiny wisp of a smile flooded my face. I nodded slowly and he looped an arm around my waist, leading me past Hermione and his brothers towards the stairs. When we got to the end of the hallway, he turned and accepted the towel and wand Hermione was holding out to him.

“Please tell Mum what’s happened,” he told her.

“I will, don’t worry,” Hermione replied. She reached around Ron and pulled me into a hug and whispered ‘I’m sorry’ into my ear. When she released me she planted a kiss to my cheek and watched as Ron led me up the stairs to the room we had been sharing since the War ended.

The stairs creaked horribly under our feet and I could imagine the dust from under them falling into nothing. Then I picture that same dust floating like ash on the wind and coming to rest on a small dark haired boy with a lightning bolt scar. I shuddered and Ron’s arm came around me tighter. The stairs gave away and we stopped on a small landing – barely big enough to hold the both of us – in front of a closed door. A freckled arm reached out and twisted the knob, emitting us into the orange-walled space. I was led over to Ron’s bed and sat down.

“I’ll be right back Harry,” Ron told me. “I’m just going to run to the loo and get a wet flannel.”

I nodded and wiped at my tears. Ron smiled sadly and kissed a tear away before he left the room. I listened to his footsteps descend the wooded stairs and then a tap running on the floor below. I took a deep, shaky breath to clear my head. I looked around the room that I had started calling mine. I took in the pealing orange paint, the fading Chuddly Cannons poster on the wall – its charm so old that the players were barely moving –, the old bed with the patchwork quilt, sheets and pillow cases and the new desk where my camp bed used to sit. All those things were strictly Ron. Then there were the things that belonged to me: the picture of my parents sitting on the night table next to the one of Ron, Hermione and I, my new Firebolt sitting in the corner, my clothes filling up the extra space in the open wardrobe.

Ron returned not a moment later, a wet flannel in his hand. He sat beside me on the bed and washed away my tears, cooling my hot face. I closed my eyes and relished in the intimacy of the act. I never had someone to wash my face for me or comb my hair or hug me or kiss me or tell me they loved me. I had all that now and I was drinking it all up. Ron dabbed under my eyes with the cloth and patted my forehead. He wiped at the corners of my mouth and wet my dry lips. I smiled and he kissed them gently.

“What have you done to your hands Harry?” Ron’s voice drifted to me. I opened my eyes to see him staring at the bloody hands in my lap in shock.

“Scratched at the door, trying to escape,” I chocked. My voice was raw from screaming and crying and it itched at my throat. Ron levitated a glass of water over to me and I took a grateful gulp.

“I’m going to kill Fred and George.” Ron busied himself with washing the dried blood off my fingers with the cloth. I winced as he hit the tender skin and he whispered an apology.

“Why are you going to kill them?”

“It was all a stupid prank to them. I figured they would know better than that. They’re 21 now!”

“You don’t have to kill them. It was just a joke. They didn’t know I was claustrophobic.”

Ron set my clean hands in his lap and looked at me. “That’s exactly my point. They didn’t know. But they should have. You’re practically family Harry. They should’ve known.”

I nodded and curled up into Ron’s side. Together we shuffled towards the head of the enlarged bed and rested our backs against the headboard. Ron had his arm around my waist, his fingers threaded through mine. I crossed my ankles over his and rested my head on his shoulder. He kissed my hair and held me close, not saying anything. It was a peaceful silence and one that we enjoyed. It was almost a luxury to be alone with my boyfriend these days. The press was always following us around, asking questions, snapping pictures and getting up in our faces. I tried to be as polite as I could with the reporters but it was putting a strain on me, Ron, Hermione and everyone else. I sighed and kissed Ron’s neck.

“Can I see them please?” Ron asked timidly.

Without answering I leaned forward and grabbed my wand. I put the tip to my temple and thought about all the thoughts I had while I was locked in the cupboard. I squinted my eyes shut and carefully extracted a copy of the memory. The blue wisps clung to the tip of my wand when I removed it from my temple. I turned and set the wand tip to the side of Ron’s head and watched as the memories slipped into his head. He shut his eyes and watched them take shape behind his eyelids. I could see his eyes flickering behind the skin and busied myself with playing with his long fingers while he watched my living nightmare.

When the memory ended Ron opened his blue eyes and looked down at me. His eyes were wide and his hand came up to cup my cheek. He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes at the contact and felt him smile. His face shifted so it was in line with mine and his lips barely touched mine.

“I’m so sorry Harry,” Ron whispered.

I yawned in response and Ron chuckled lightly. He lay down slowly, pulling me with him. I rolled onto my side and rested my back against his chest. His arm came around me and I snuggled into his warmth. A voice tickled my ear.

“Sleep and everything will be better. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. Sleep took me away immediately.


End file.
